D&D (2024) Do you think they will add more races to PHB2024 to make up for dropping other stuff?

[Greg K]

I sometimes wonder about the alternate reality where D&D has a single setting and all the lore and mechanics to the base game was tightly tied to it. Dwarves couldn't be wizards, but they could be rune casters for example.

I am fine with such restrictions such as the above dwarves for specific settings or homebrew, but I don't want the game to be tied to a single setting

 

[Horwath]

Is it a "train wreck," though? There's a small group of people who are really focused on it, but most folks reacted very positively to the proposed change. I think the new new way of doing mixed species is great - it preserves balance while letting players have any combination they can imagine. I think species should largely be an aesthetic choice, anyway; I like the emphasis to be on the choices a character makes rather than how they were born.

Point buy would be a balancing nightmare, and would ultimate lead to homogenization as power gamers figure out the optimal combinations, which then trickles down to the general player population.

Everything is a balancing nightmare. But maybe wotc should do it to earm their pay. If they expect to sell their 'new' edition/PHB it should have something new in it. Or better balanced.

But I do agree on your choice of race being mostly cosmetic also.

Maybe istead of all features, instead of one feat at 1st level, everyone gets 3 feats to pick and that replaces race features.

 

[Remathilis]

The more this trainwreck of 'half-races' debate continues, I'm hoping for a custom race/lineage only where you 'point buy' your race/lineage with the classics like; human, elf, dwarf, orc are just being shown as example.

Ooh, can I have a custom class too that lets me buy my class features and the classics like fighter, wizard, druid, and warlock are just shown as examples?

 

[Remathilis]

I am fine with such restrictions such as the above dwarves for specific settings or homebrew, but I don't want the game to be tied to a single setting

Almost every other RPG aside from generic systems like GURPS has a single setting. Pathfinder does it quite well. D&D is one of the only outliers where the core rules have to accommodate almost every possible homebrew a DM can make plus dozens of official settings. So they can never go deep with lore because it will be contradicted by some other setting or DM who says "well actually..."

 

[Horwath]

Ooh, can I have a custom class too that lets me buy my class features and the classics like fighter, wizard, druid, and warlock are just shown as examples?

That would be nice also.

 

[Parmandur]

Almost every other RPG aside from generic systems like GURPS has a single setting. Pathfinder does it quite well. D&D is one of the only outliers where the core rules have to accommodate almost every possible homebrew a DM can make plus dozens of official settings. So they can never go deep with lore because it will be contradicted by some other setting or DM who says "well actually..."

Almost every other RPG is a niche without a massive audience, too. That might be one of the more attractive features of D&D.

 

[Aldarc]

I like all the parts of the imaginary world to matter, not just those that primarily interact with the combat system.

I agree, but I think differently to this idea. I think that this limits what those imaginary worlds can be if all Bladesingers must be elves or half-elves. I prefer a greater range of imaginary worlds and not just the ones that D&D tells me that I should have.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think the new new way of doing mixed species is great - it preserves balance while letting players have any combination they can imagine.

it offers players the choice of having none of the combinations they can imagine, it says 'pick one of the existing species we already gave you, and you can pretend to be another'

I think species should largely be an aesthetic choice, anyway; I like the emphasis to be on the choices a character makes rather than how they were born.

then you should be perfectly happy to remove all species options and make everyone a base human, then all your species traits can be aesthetically fluffed in, if you don't think there is value of mechanical expression of being half-species then what's really the difference between that and not thinking there is value of mechanical expression of being any species?

Point buy would be a balancing nightmare, and would ultimate lead to homogenization as power gamers figure out the optimal combinations, which then trickles down to the general player population.

I don't think making a point buy traits list balanced would be as difficult to achieve as you seem to think it would be, and power gamers would homogenize the variety out of any system they're given, it happens with the existing species with their traits, it happened with floating and fixed ASI, it happens with feats and multiclassing and custom lineage, you should not make choices on what to do with something based on what powergamers will do with it.

 

[Remathilis]

Almost every other RPG is a niche without a massive audience, too. That might be one of the more attractive features of D&D.

Yeah, but those generic RPG systems like GURPS would be far more popular if open creativity was highly desirable. That and the fact people are decrying the lack of lore and loss of canon in D&D supplements. I don't think there is a direct correlation between D&D as generic and it's popularity.

 

[Corinnguard]

Almost every other RPG aside from generic systems like GURPS has a single setting. Pathfinder does it quite well. D&D is one of the only outliers where the core rules have to accommodate almost every possible homebrew a DM can make plus dozens of official settings. So they can never go deep with lore because it will be contradicted by some other setting or DM who says "well actually..."

If D&D was now willing to stick to just one setting like everyone else, which setting would it be? Each and every fan of D&D has their own favorite setting thanks to WoTC creating a number of them over the years. They have literally painted themselves into proverbial corner.

There needs to be a thread where we take the best elements of each D&D setting and try to mash them into one world. Till all worlds are one.